Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 89228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Blood drained from her face, her cheeks numb. He'd dressed her and left her. A quiver gripped her chin. She rubbed it roughly away and gathered the papers.
They shook in her hands as she sat on her heels and flipped through them. The first was a receipt for her mortgage. Zero balance, the house was paid off. A pang rippled through her chest.
Next were printouts of all her credit card statements and utility bills. Zero balances. The ache in her chest swelled to her throat.
The following letter showed an unfamiliar bank account in her name, the balance printed in bold font. $100,000. Enough to live on for years. Burning pinpricks hammered behind her eyes.
She choked, buckling over her knees. Sobs tumbled out, painful and wretched. Oh God, it hurt. He'd left her. Left her without shades on her windows. Left her with a secure and stable and financially-free life.
To free her.
She gritted her teeth, the papers crumpling in her fists. Stupid, stupid, stupid man. Why would she want any of this if she didn't have him?
She opened the last letter, a handwritten note scrawled with loose penmanship.
I will always love you, I will always want you, and I will never ever be disappointed in you. -Van
It was a good-bye. A fist-through-the-fucking-heart goodbye. The tears surged, hard and ugly and agonizing. She flung herself off the bed and staggered through the room with a helpless, rage-filled cry, her arms sweeping everything in her path. The lamp, the TV, and the duffel bags hit the walls and bounced along the floor, thumping and exploding.
Her vision blurred. Her legs crashed into furniture. Her teeth sawed her lips until blood coated her tongue. Her fingernails shredded and ripped in her attack on everything she could destroy.
At 8:27 AM, she sat on the floor with her back against the dresser. Her lungs burned, her cheeks cracked with drying tears, and her heart jabbed at her ribs with each thump of its sharp splintery edges.
“Well done, you crazy fucking bitch.” Her voice scratched her raw throat, but she deserved it. “First prize for world's ugliest temper tantrum. Yay.”
She took in the aftermath with little interest. Pillow stuffing covered the floor. Dents peppered the sheet rock. The small TV lay on its side with cracks spider-webbing over the screen.
Where was her anxiety for straight lines? Her impulse to tackle the mess?
She dropped her head back against the dresser and closed her eyes. She couldn't think about that right now. Something else was pressing against her brain.
He lived thirty minutes from that restaurant. If she knew which restaurant it was, she could narrow her search for the cabin. She jumped to her feet and strode toward the wall that faced Liv and Joshua's house, pressing her cheek against it. Maybe Van had given them his address? At the very least, they knew the restaurant.
And so her harrowing journey to their house began. By the end of that first night, she was able to peer out of every window without losing control of her breathing.
By day five, she started keeping her front door open, letting in bugs and sunshine and the gawking of neighbors in passing cars. She sat on the threshold, trembling and gasping, but she didn't pass out.
On day nineteen, her ass hit the bench on the front porch for the first time in two years. She'd stumbled into it, actually, in a breathless fall of exhausted, quivering muscles. She might've clapped her hands if they weren't squeezing the weathered slats in a death grip.
But she did manage a smile, the first smile to touch her lips since the night they'd left for the restaurant. God, he'd looked so handsome in his suit. He'd been so nervous and...turned on by her.
Her heart pinched, and her smile wobbled away. She missed him, deeply and painfully. His absence was a constant wrench of every breath as if her lungs could never quite fill without him.
She uncurled a hand and raised the hem of her old t-shirt, wiping the humidity and sweat from her face. He would've been proud of her. Fuck that. She was proud of herself.
“I'm sitting on his bench,” she announced to the coverage of bushes, the sunlight soaking into her damp hair. She ran her fingers over the wood, hoping to absorb some part of him that might still be there.
She glanced at the closed-up windows on Liv's house and nodded. She'd get there.
That night, she lay on top of the covers in bed, nude and as content as she could be without him beside her. As she fantasized about his heat sliding over her skin and his tongue controlling her mouth, her hands roamed her body.
Her house might've been a mess, but she'd maintained her daily regimen of cardio and strength training, and that effort flexed sensually in the hard hillocks of her ass and firm flesh on her hips. Her muscles and curves felt beautiful beneath her fingertips. And so did her pussy.